Whisper Sweet Nothings
- Shannon Millman
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Artist Statement
As Florence’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, Shannon Milliman believes poetry belongs everywhere people live, work, and gather. Her work inspires curiosity, listening, joy of language, and creating confidence that poetic expression is for all people. Especially you. Theatrical, lyrical, dancer of words, body, spirit. Marathon runner, storyteller. Sparker of conversations behind closed doors.
I’m in love with every single man I've ever met
And I’m in love with every single man I haven’t met
The way he clutches my pocket as I clutch my rubies
How he pulls the pick-up tailgate down like its a bed of daffodils meant only for me
The way he saved a mossy wilderness log as a lair meant for only he and I
when I hop on his back, legs a vice for him
My pollen blessing his spine as a stamen
My pistil covered in denim stigma
In a dark theatre his index finger knows the route of the star trail
As a comet a million light years away
I can’t even count that high
Sitting and spinning 99-100
When he asked me to dance and told me I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen
Why didn’t he say I was Cassiopeia in ebony night
Aglow in the aurora borealis of dawn?
Why did he keep me a secret from his red-headed-baptist-future-wife?
Kissing behind the curtain for no witness but God
He, a comedian, fainting when he scored a touchdown
Kissed, fallen from grace
My lips, his prize
Where is he now
I wonder
Who does he love
Does he ever think of me in the night when he’s lonely or writing a poem
about the woes and weight of sundry dawns
At daybreak that catch who’d leave me wanting for nothing
With his mechanical engineering status, his river-runs-through-it eyes
Motorized mouthpiece, mmm.
Remember.
And the broad-chested marine, too old for me, but really, what is a soul but wise,
Says what he wants
Wants what he says
And asks me when we are going out
Not if
He knew I’d fall in love with him, just like the other man…boy…man-cub…
He was right
I never admit.
Play fickle, coy but oh, you know—
The guitar, long hair, close your mouth when we kiss
Don’t want it too bad
But what if you do?
When innocence and Spring sprouts
plot the garden before you even know the rows
Where the lettuce propagates
Where lavender entrances
Where sunflowers like peacocks strut
He’ s towering, he’s concrete, he’s water, he’s simmering salmon chowder,
he's slick as bowling shoes, He’s greased lightning.
That’s him, the cymbal crash, the high-hat waltzing on escapade
Take me out for escargot
I ought to fall in love
Those well-sprung eyes who’ve seen things.
Is it war? Longing? Abandonment?
Measurements at JC Penney
Get her a bra with a bow in the front
So he knows X marks the spot
His treasure
She’ll give it up
But not so swift, buster
She loves you with a dizzy spritz of absinthe
Press firm
To keep the planets aligned
These things can’t be rushed
Gravity, guts and gravado are at stake
But why when I have him right there
Do I dream of him over there
May I have them all
The rugged
The bare
The Western
The Eastern
The Rambler
The gambler
The man with the slow hand
The Boiler maker caulking my pipes
Sweet, sweet irene irises
The singer, melody maker
Why, all of them so grippy, so gummy, so like oil and grease and
Smell like sweet-satan-savior-sweat in the sun
God-blessed sacrament
I kneel
Give head
Praying every man may know
God is masculine form
A title Earned
In all of the above ways
I worship
From behind, front, missionary style
Submit
Obey or
Contrary coy
Police officer
Fireman
Sizzle
Burn
Sin
Win
Would you like a steak?
Or eggplant
Grilled
I can’t hear you
Speak up.
Please, yes
Shannon Milliman is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Florence, Alabama, a TED speaker, and a writer and performer whose work spans poetry, essays, and the one‑woman show Not So Supernova. She is the author of What If God Is? What If I Am? (7 Points Press) and is currently touring her essay collection, These Mountains Should Be Ours.
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